In our latest article in a series on the Bell D188A (a.k.a. XF-109 / XF3L) supersonic VTOL fighter of the late 1950s, we present more primary documents concerning this aircraft in a chronological sequence, specifically Bell progress reports and correspondence in the April—August 1958 period. First we have a Bell Progress Summary from April 11. Since the […]

In our latest article in a series on the Bell D188A (a.k.a. XF-109 / XF3L) supersonic VTOL fighter of the late 1950s, we present more primary documents concerning this aircraft in a chronological sequence, specifically Navy Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer) correspondence and a detailed Bell armament report from the February—March 1958 period. First we have a memorandum […]

In our latest article in a series on the Bell D188A (a.k.a. XF-109 / XF3L) supersonic VTOL fighter of the late 1950s, we present a Mock-Up Summary Report from January 1958. The first portion of the introduction to the report is reproduced below. The configuration inspection of the Bell D188A VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) Aircraft took place at the Bell […]

In our seventh article in a series on the Bell D188A (a.k.a. XF-109 / XF3L) supersonic VTOL fighter of the late 1950s, we present a pair of Bell reports from December 1957, along with some internal BuAer correspondence critiquing the design. The first document is Progress Report No. 5 dating from December 15, 1957. At the time, […]

In our sixth article in a series on the Bell D188A (a.k.a. XF-109 / XF3L) supersonic VTOL fighter of the late 1950s, we present the final portion of a huge Bell design data summary from November 1957, which features 63 drawings of the aircraft and its various components. Please click through the gallery above to view these […]

In our fifth article in a series on the Bell D188A (a.k.a. XF-109 / XF3L) supersonic VTOL fighter of the late 1950s, we present the second portion of a huge Bell design data summary from November 1957. To view the report in detail, please click through the image gallery above, which reproduces the Structures and Weights, Systems, […]

In our fourth article in a series on the Bell D188A (a.k.a. XF-109 / XF3L) supersonic VTOL fighter of the late 1950s, we present a Bell design data summary from November 1957. Due to the large size of this document, we have broken it into three separate parts. On June 28, 1957 Bell Aircraft Corporation […]

In our third article in a series on the Bell D188A (a.k.a. XF-109 / XF3L) supersonic VTOL fighter, we present a letter and two progress reports on the type dating from September through November 1957. The first document presented in the image gallery above is a letter from E.G. Bull, the Bureau of Aeronautics Representative (BAR) […]

In our second article in a series on the Bell D188A (a.k.a. XF-109 / XF3L) supersonic VTOL fighter, we present a brochure dating from July 1957, in which the design has evolved from the five-jet configuration presented previously into a six-jet aircraft, though the general overall layout is similar to the earlier study. In the opening […]

On December 13, 1956 Bell Aircraft Corporation submitted a report to the US Navy Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer) outlining power plant and configuration improvements to its original D188 VTOL fighter proposal of October 1, 1956. The report is significant because it contains the earliest known configuration of the D188A (more commonly known as the XF-109/XF3L, […]

On October 1, 1956 Avro Aircraft Limited of Ontario, Canada submitted its proposal to fulfill US Navy specification TS-140 for a vertical take-off jet day fighter. It was a small flat-rising canard-type aircraft with two pairs of simple unswept wings of low aspect ratio. A Bristol Orpheus jet engine was mounted on each wing tip, […]

In April 1955, Douglas drafted these unorthodox transport aircraft studies under the Model 1875 designation for the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) project, a joint effort between the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and USAF which began in May 1951. ANP was the successor program to the Nuclear Energy for Propulsion of Aircraft (NEPA) project initiated in […]